


Not now, but always

by RenGoneMad



Category: Naruto
Genre: 60-minute Fic, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Hatake Kakashi is Bad at Feelings, Hokage Hatake Kakashi, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Rokudaime Hatake Kakashi, Tenzō's Cabin, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27890536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenGoneMad/pseuds/RenGoneMad
Summary: “You want me to be part of the Rokudaime’s guard,” Tenzō confirmed.“No,” Kakashi’s expression was guarded. “I want you to lead it.”Tenzō dropped his hand to the ANBU mask, running his thumb across cold porcelain.“You could have a life as Yamato still,” Kakashi continued quietly, “see Naruto and Sai when they’re in the village, eat at Ichiraku, have Sakura hound you at the hospital.” He paused. “You could find someone to share that life with. If you wanted it, there would be time.”
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou, Hatake Kakashi/Yamato | Tenzou
Comments: 21
Kudos: 94
Collections: Found Family 60-minutes





	Not now, but always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vulcanhighblood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcanhighblood/gifts).



> This is for the 60-minute Found Family gift exchange over at Tenzō's Cabin Discord! :3
> 
> I wrote this for the amazing vulcanhighblood, and I really hope you enjoy it! >.< I included the themes of Found Family, Broken, Whole, and KakaTenz.
> 
> Since this is a 60-minute fic there was no beta and so I'm very sorry for any typos and errors, they are totally mine because I didn't wind up with much time to edit. >.<

The assistant’s desk outside the Hokage’s office was barren despite it being barely past lunch. Scrolls covered the surface, but hadn’t been organized into separate piles yet. Less than a month post-war, Shizune was still needed in the hospital more than as the Rokudaime’s aide.

That would have to change; Tenzō knew Kakashi’s habits with paperwork—and whatever Tenzō had been summoned for, he was certain it wasn’t for his skills in organization. Perhaps a year ago he would have believed that, but not now.

Not now. 

Each limb felt like lead as Tenzō dragged himself forward. Fatigue attempted to weigh him down, but the door to the Hokage’s office loomed near and Tenzō made it with a fairly even gait that even the ANBU hidden in the shadows should have barely noticed was teetering on the edge of instability. 

Kakashi would notice.

The door to the office was open, and Tenzō didn’t bother to knock as he entered. Instead he leaned against the far wall, taking some of the weight from his legs as he waited. If he were in better health, he would have joined Kakashi beside the window and in staring at whatever part of Konoha had caught his eye. 

Not now.

Kakashi had discarded the Hokage hat—it lay tilted on a messy stack of papers on the room’s only extra chair. The thin white robe clung to slouching shoulders, bathed in yellow by the light of the sun. It bleached his profile, turning the edges white in a dreamlike way. 

Except, Tenzō had long since figured out that this world wasn’t the dream. 

It only took a few moments for Kakashi to turn. Two gray eyes met Tenzō’s. The new one had been untouched by a blade, the lingering scar the only proof that Kakashi had ever been anything but whole. 

Facing the full brunt of Kakashi’s stare was unsettling. It felt heavier, like the extra iris had doubled the weight and all that Kakashi could see. 

In reality, Kakashi had always been able to see every part of Tenzō; he’d never needed eyes for that.

Tenzō cleared his throat. He reclined his head in the deepest approximation of a bow that he could muster without risking vertigo so great it would slam him to the floor. “I’m sorry I missed your inauguration, Hokage-sama—”

“Tenzō,” Kakashi cut him off sharply. Tenzō’s lips twitched up into the barest hint of a smile at the irritation in his tone. Kakashi must have been exhausted to allow it to seep through. “I’m already suffering enough of that with Gai.”

The smile melted from Tenzō’s face. 

Gai hadn’t had Tenzō’s good fortune in recovery. 

“I suppose he’s proud that his Eternal Rival made Hokage,” Tenzō said quietly.

There wasn’t much else that Gai had to be proud of these days. A few seconds ticked in silence. 

Tenzō heard Kakashi inhale deeply. “Your status?”

Tenzō raised his head. “Sakura says it’ll take a week or two more for my chakra pathways to heal well enough to use again,” he confessed. Even if the damage left him half-dead in a way Kakashi had done to himself a million times over, it was a far better result than many had had after the final battles. ‘Recovery’ was actually in Tenzō’s cards, low in the deck though it was. “But I should be fit for duty then.”

Kakashi dropped his stare to his desk. Hands clad in familiar fingerless gloves formed a few quick seals, and a low drawer slid open. 

Tenzō didn’t have to wonder for long what Kakashi retrieved from it.

Cat’s porcelain ANBU mask slid neatly across the desk, coming to a stop just before toppling over the edge. 

Tenzō almost wished it had. He felt the crash as something hard and jagged dropped into the pit of his stomach. 

He had considered this outcome. Of course he had—ANBU weren’t a group that could be easily replenished whenever one fell. Cat was necessary, a squad leader—while Yamato’s team hardly existed at all.

Yamato had always just been a replacement.

"I know you want to be Yamato.” Kakashi broke the stillness that had fallen around them. His voice was softer than normal, and the edge hidden within was one that Tenzō couldn’t quite place. The empty eyes of the ANBU mask captured his gaze, not releasing him even as Kakashi continued. “That doesn't have to change, even with this. I’m in the village most of the time, so you could have off-days in Konoha. It wouldn’t be like when you led a unit.”

That arrested Tenzō’s attention. Slowly, he lifted wide eyes to meet Kakashi’s. A faint crease had formed between silver brows and pale fingertips rested on the polished wooden surface of the desk.

Tenzō moistened chapped lips and pushed himself off the wall, forcing his legs to carry him a few steps closer. “You want me to be part of the Rokudaime’s guard,” he confirmed.

“No,” Kakashi’s expression was guarded, and Tenzō realized that the weight of his stare was only an illusion; two eyes gave no more information than one. It was Kakashi’s body that spoke for him—the tension in his hips, the deliberately loose set of his shoulders. “I want you to lead it.”

Tenzō dropped his hand to the mask, running his thumb across the cold porcelain. 

“You could have a life as Yamato still,” Kakashi continued, “see Naruto and Sai when they’re in the village, eat at Ichiraku, have Sakura hound you at the hospital.” He paused. “You could find someone to share that life with. If you wanted it, there would be time.”

Tenzō tried to imagine what that sort of life would be like.

It wasn’t hard; his Infinite Tsukuyomi wasn’t so different from that reality. 

In it, Tenzō had still lived in his cabin, had worn his happuri and served Konoha—but somehow, the missions never took him outside the village. Somehow, there was never any bloodshed. Somehow, Tenzō came home from nothing with a sense of accomplishment that warmed his gut. Somehow, others looked up to him, but he didn’t have to work to earn their respect—in this world, they knew his face, his name, him. In the Tsukuyomi, he’d had friends that were practically family.

In reality, Tenzō didn’t even know himself that well. He couldn’t define what ‘family’ meant, except that Kakashi had been there.

In Tenzō’s dream, he had finally been important to people—important to Kakashi.

That was true in this reality, as well—Kakashi didn’t have to say it for Tenzō to know—but this wasn’t a fantasy. It wasn’t a perfect dream come true. 

If Tenzō accepted, he would be near Kakashi nearly all the time, but Kakashi would sleep in the cold halls of the Hokage Residence (or more likely, slumped in his desk chair) rather than in Tenzō’s cabin. 

If Tenzō accepted, he would stay mostly within the village, but it wouldn’t be at rest. Inevitably, eventually, there would be bloodshed. 

If Tenzō accepted, he might have to watch Kakashi find a lover—but really, he had always known that could happen, even if he hadn’t known he might be forced to face it quite so intimately. 

If Tenzō accepted, he might have to watch Kakashi die, or die in Kakashi’s stead—but that, too, was a possibility either way. 

Tenzō knew better than to hope for a peaceful future—not now, and not ever.

Kakashi wasn’t offering peace, because neither of them had that to give.

But they did still have things to give to one another, if they were brave enough.

”You don't have to take this, Tenzō,” Kakashi murmured. He slipped his hands into his pockets; Tenzō knew they would be curled into fists, blunt nails digging into clothed palms. “But you're the only person I trust."

That wasn’t true. It was Kakashi who had taught Tenzō the worth of teammates, Kakashi who had taught Tenzō how to trust, how to—

Tenzō’s gaze fell to Kakashi’s mask, which cloaked his features even as one of his greatest scars remained exposed.

Ah.

Kakashi didn’t mean he trusted Tenzō with his death: he trusted Tenzō with his life. 

He trusted Tenzō with his daily ritual at the memorial stone, with the broken tantō in its sheath in his apartment. He trusted Tenzō to watch him in every moment, even when Kakashi was at his most vulnerable—without any masks to hide behind.

Kakashi trusted Tenzō with himself.

Everyone in Konoha was desperately trying to piece each other together once more: their lives, their bodies, their souls. Tenzō saw it in the rubble still being sorted through in sections of the village. He saw it in the expansion to the orphanage that he himself had helped to build. 

So much had been taken from them all. They were broken, with pieces taken and crushed into dust. Some of them had suffered that more than others. Kakashi had suffered enough before the war to last a lifetime, and yet he was charged with the responsibility for tens of thousands of others. 

Tenzō wasn’t entirely whole, either, but he never really had been.

Had Kakashi? 

They had both changed. The Kakashi that stood before Tenzō wasn’t the same Kakashi as the one from Tenzō’s Tsukuyomi, or their old unit. Tenzō wasn’t the same person Kakashi knew, either.

Not now. 

It didn’t matter.

Konoha could be ground to rubble a thousand times over, but Tenzō and Kakashi would still stand up to gather the pieces.

Kakashi waited for Tenzō’s answer—because, apparently, his newest insanity included imagining a world in which Tenzō would want to stand beside anyone else.

Tenzō didn’t look at Cat’s mask as he smiled. The porcelain had warmed beneath his fingertips. “All you had to do was ask, senpai.” 

Kakashi let out a deep breath, raising a hand to card through his hair. It didn’t sound like relief. “I know you’ll obey orders, Tenzō. But you know that if I’m offering a choice, you actually have one. There are other roles you could take—”

“Kakashi,” Tenzō interrupted. His smile hadn’t faded. His heart beat strongly in his throat.

He watched as the name sunk in, as Kakashi realized that none of the appropriate honorifics were going to come. 

Kakashi froze. He took a deep breath, visible in the rising of his chest beneath the standard ANBU shirt that lay beneath the Rokudaime’s robes. In slow motion, Kakashi’s hand dropped to curl at his side, and he raised his head to watch with wide eyes as Tenzō drew closer. 

Tenzō shook his head. “All you ever had to do was ask.”

Kakashi’s eyes creased down at the corners. Tenzō imagined his lips followed. “You’ll stop me if I ask for too much,” Kakashi murmured.

It was a statement.

Tenzō answered anyway: “I’ve been stopping myself for fifteen years. I’m willing to wait a few more.”

Kakashi glanced down as Tenzō forced burning muscles to cover Kakashi’s hand. He knew the scars that lay beneath the metal guard. Or, he had years ago—perhaps there were more now.

The village was still broken; they were still broken. Tenzō had torture at the hands of Orochimaru and a tantalizing fantasy to forget. 

Kakashi had lost the person he had idolized since childhood, who had defined Kakashi’s life since long before Tenzō even met him. 

They both had a village to repair. 

Kakashi and Tenzō… they could wait. Whatever they both felt and wanted—it could wait for a little longer. A better time, a better place. 

Kakashi gently turned his hand in Tenzō’s grip, lacing their fingers together. Kakashi’s were cold; they wouldn’t be for long.

Whatever more Kakashi wanted to ask—the things Tenzō had always wanted to ask for—they would come. Not now, but soon.

Even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because one truth always held, no matter if the rest of the world was ground to dust:

Kakashi and Tenzō would stand together. 

Not now—but always.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to join the Tenzō's Cabin Discord server, just click on [this link](https://tenzoscabin.tumblr.com/post/633593713011146752/join-the-tenz%C5%8Ds-cabin-discord-server) to go to our Tumblr message with the invite! Only requirements are that you be 18+ and respectful to others. :3


End file.
